Duce Benito Mussolini in 1941 insisted on the transfer of the southwestern parts of the USSR to Italy. Hitler evaded these negotiations and limited himself to only vague answers in the spirit of the fact that the Third Reich was ready to talk about the transfer of the captured Soviet territories under the control of Rome only if more Italian troops were sent to the Eastern Front. New facts from the history of World War II became known after the publication of archival documents by the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Agent Vadim, who worked in Great Britain during the war, reported to Moscow about the negotiations between Rome and Berlin and the fate of the occupied territories of the USSR. His cipher telegram was sent to the capital of the Soviet Union on December 3, 1941, when the Wehrmacht was stationed near Moscow.
"Indirectly, we received confirmation from a major Italian official that Mussolini means after the destruction of Russia to receive special rights to establish an Italian protectorate in the South-West of Russia," Vadim reported, whose real name and surname were Anatoly Gorsky.
Further, Vadim reported that after negotiations between Hitler and Mussolini, the Fuhrer obtained from the Duce an agreement to send more troops to the USSR. These previously secret reports were published in the collection “The Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. 100 years. Documents and certificates.
The Kingdom of Italy (until the end of World War II, the Italian state formally remained monarchist) declared war on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. In August of the same year, a small Italian auxiliary corps, as well as several fighter planes, were sent to the USSR.
Substantial Italian forces were deployed to the Eastern Front in 1942. As of April 1942, the 8th Italian Army numbered 335 thousand people. This group took part in the Battle of Stalingrad and was completely defeated by the Red Army. About 21 thousand Italian soldiers were killed in the battles, and almost 65 thousand soldiers and officers were taken prisoner.]>
